Tag: Film analysis blog

Film, Landscape

Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer) – The Human Landscape.

This article contains minor spoilers. Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin (2013) is a film that is structured around the different landscapes and their collected norms to such an extent that it comes to resemble a strange, erotic and surreal travelogue.  While the film’s ambiguous nature is one of its defining features, its portrayal of specific locations and, vitally, their effect on the people within them, … Continue reading Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer) – The Human Landscape.

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 2 (Chaos)

Part 1. Elemental Chaos. “The Mountains, Fields, Meadows, Forest, and Wilderness of the Preparatory Act text symbolize the mineral kingdom and natural kingdoms of the Earth, the first three “Rounds” of the Wheel of Cosmic life.” (1998, p.303) – Stephen Morris. It is not revolutions and upheavals That clear the road to new and better days, But revelations, lavishness and torments Of someone’s soul, inspired … Continue reading Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 2 (Chaos)

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Film

L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) – A Curious Distance.

For a film that, on the surface, appears to be held in such high regard, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) seems to have distanced itself from a number of its audience.  While I often wish to adhere to the third person in criticism, this article cannot help but revert to a personal reception of the film and also refer to recent personal reflections shared online.  After … Continue reading L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960) – A Curious Distance.

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Ligeti’s Atmosphères as a Musical Foreshadowing of Kubrick’s 2001- Part 1 (Introduction)

Ligeti’s Atmosphères as a Musical Foreshadowing of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Introduction. “First in Cologne in 1957 and later during my long stay in Vienna in the ’60s, I gradually evolved a musical style in which I abandoned structures conceived in terms of bars, melodies, lines and conventional forms.  In this respect my first two orchestral works, Apparitions and Atmosphères, are the most … Continue reading Ligeti’s Atmosphères as a Musical Foreshadowing of Kubrick’s 2001- Part 1 (Introduction)

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Film

Classe Tous Risques (1960) – Claude Sautet (BFI)

In spite of working wearily outside of the French New Wave movement, Claude Sautet’s debut feature, Classe Tous Risques (1960), cannot help but evoke the cinematic environment bursting forth around it.  While it may seem crass to spend time discussing more well known work in an article about a director whose work has been largely ignored outside of his national audience, it should also aim … Continue reading Classe Tous Risques (1960) – Claude Sautet (BFI)

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 1 (Introduction)

Elemental Chaos and Nietzsche’s Eternal Return in the Music of Alexander Scriabin and the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Introduction “It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.” (1625/2002, p.344) – Francis Bacon. The cyclic nature of life and the process of destruction and rejuvenation has been a subject of … Continue reading Elemental Chaos and Eternal Return in Scriabin and Andrei Tarkovsky – Part 1 (Introduction)

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Peeping Tom (Michael Powell,1960) – Aural Perspectives of Murder.

In spite of its very energetic reappraisal and various analyses, Michael Powell’s career destroying masterpiece, Peeing Tom (1960), is a film whose musical eccentricities and sound design contain hidden depths. For a film that appears on the surface to be almost excessively Freudian, this was normal yet, when looking at some of the detailed reappraisals and even some of the high-end re-evaluations of its narrative … Continue reading Peeping Tom (Michael Powell,1960) – Aural Perspectives of Murder.

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 4 (Conclusions)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.  Combining the Readings: Similarities, Contradictions and Cross-Over. “It’s as if the film were pinpointing the very essence of the unfilmable: the entwined couple, monstrous, the two-backed beast of the primal scene, the impossible couple of body and voice.” – Michel Chion (1999, p.149). While Murphy and Fenimore examine and address different points and issues, their resulting essays not only … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 4 (Conclusions)

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Film

Journal De France – Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougret.

There’s an unspoken relationship between a nation and its artists that rarely gets exposed during the artists’ lifetime.  While history can be conceived as a linear time-line of events, resulting from various scenarios of cause and effect, it is not until after the death of an artist that it becomes clear how their work can be seen as a reflection of various cultural milestones and … Continue reading Journal De France – Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougret.

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Film

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Occult Sexuality

Strange undercurrents of sexuality pervade the films of Stanley Kubrick. Though not always present explicitly, the raw presence of dark desire and physical wanting seems scattered throughout his work. From Dr Strangelove‘s ideas of selective breeding based on the “sexual characteristics that will have to be of a highly stimulating nature” to The Shining‘s most surreal haunting of a man receiving oral sex from another … Continue reading Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Occult Sexuality

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